


Learning to Fly

by PepperCat



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Head Injury, falling, gunfire, jumping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperCat/pseuds/PepperCat
Summary: There was probably another solution, but everyone seemed to be in a hurry.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Learning to Fly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Swashbuckler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swashbuckler/gifts).



Piper, in Axel's opinion, needs to learn that sometimes being the most useful person around is not an important as watching your back. A guy who watched his back could have gotten out with the rest of them when things went sideways, and yeah, it'd've meant letting the alarm go off. Cold would be pissy about that, but he's not exactly a bucket of sunshine anyway.

Except Piper has this _thing_ about proving how useful he is, and jumped at the chance. So the alarm didn't go off. But the _reason_ it didn't go off is that Piper was fiddling with it so everyone could make it to the roof, so he had to take a different way out, and he got noticed. Not _seen_ , exactly, but the cruiser on patrol has stopped at the corner of the building and one of its doors is opening. Right now Piper's squinched down _really_ small behind a couple of steps by the side entrance, and Axel's pretty sure the cops can't see him, but when they go looking...

"Baez," Cold says.

"They'll see me and call for help." Which again, Axel would not give that much of a damn about, but Boo gets really touchy about maybe getting caught. It's probably one of the things she likes about Cold.

But he's practicing being helpful. "I can distract 'em."

Cold gives him a look like _your distractions are not the kind that prevent people from calling for help_ but just says "No bombs," and Axel lifts his hands and steps back and looks back down at the cops. One of them is out of the cruiser and starting down the side of the building, and the other is... kind of half-out of the car, not really moving yet.

The one walking down the side of the building is going to spot Piper unless everything starts going really well. Given the night so far, nothing is going to start going really well.

Axel takes a couple steps back and giggles. It helps.

"Hey, Boo," he says. "Grab him for me, willya?"

And then he's running, step _up_ on the lip at the edge of the roof and push off and tuck and roll and fall. He hears someone starting to yell from behind him and chill out, it's three-stories-and-change and _planned_ , he's gonna come down way more like Buster Keaton than Evelyn McHale--

He hits with a crump-and-smash so loud he forgets everything for a second, shoulders first and back and then his feet hit the crumpling roof. There is yelling and his head is ringing and he can't think but he's still moving, backwards somersault onto the hood and down off it, and he's pretty sure he hits the sidewalk with a bounce-and-slink rather than a stagger. Least as far as the cops can tell. The one who was half-out of the car is on her hands and knees next to it, and the one heading towards Piper has turned around but thrown his hands over his head and is looking like he doesn't know which way to jump or run.

Axel has to laugh.

"Hello, Keystone!" He throws his arms wide, and his shoulders are _really_ letting him know that he landed on top of the lightbar and there are _bits_ with sharp edges in him as a result. If he tried he could maybe see where Pipes was from here, but he doesn't look; this is the part where his focus is the _audience_ , and he dusts some of the shattered lights off with a fingerflick. "So good to be back. Before you ask, it _did_ hurt when I fell from heaven."

The cop with his hands over his head looks like a cat who knows you're about to turn on the vaccuum cleaner. The other one has gotten up on her knees and is going for her gun. _Dammit_ he wishes he wasn't empty-handed right about now.

"Officer," he says, spinning in a circle to to keep the guy's eyes on him and then doing a quick loping two-step to get closer to the one on her knees, "that's not very _friendly_." He grins and glances at the other one, and apparently his grin is a bit unnerving because the guy just backs up. Boo is right, they would _absolutely_ be calling for help--probably not the guy, but the lady seems to have it a lot more together than her partner--but Axel's landing has screwed up the antennas on the car roof just a bit. They're both watching him, and that's all he's here for. He pouts a little. "I thought even Keystone cops could do friendly."

The one on her knees has her gun out. "Freeze."

"You didn't say _Simon Says_ ," he scolds.

"Get down on your knees," she says, "and put your hands--" Axel tunes the rest of it out, yawns dramatically and laughs again.

"You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man," he says, holding his hands up and wiggling his fingers. And she _shouldn't_ , but he's apparently making her real nervous, and when he takes a dancing step forward there's a match-head scratch of light from the gunbarrel--

\--there's a slurping _puff_ , his gut goes cold, sight all needle-sparkles--

\--and the sidewalk/wrecked car/cops just _isn't_ anymore even though he hears the gunshot. The light's coming from somewhere way different and he feels like he just came down from a fast elevator ride or a slow trip.

There's people around and he isn't sure where _up_ is supposed to happen anymore so he gets his head down, doesn't fall to his knees as the arms around him let go, but puts out one hand so he can balance on fingers and toes. The roof surface is gravel and all the bits of it are swimming like they're about to turn into a kaleidoscope and Boo just _blew him to pieces_ but he isn't dead.

"Wheeeeeeee,"and even to him it sounds like a leaky balloon. "Distraction." He hiccups as someone hauls him up to standing. He is not very big on the standing thing but it's happening anyway so that's probably Mick.

"Boo," he announces, "you are _freaky_."

"You _idiot_."

That's not Boo. It sounds like Piper, honestly, and Axel is pretty sure that was the point of this all so go Boo.

"You're welcome," he says, grinning and staying on his feet, which is pretty easy with Mick hauling him along. There's a bit of _stumbling_ , right, but no _falling_. Piper--it _is_ him, looking a little pale but not nearly as wobbly as Axel feels, but then again he didn't hit his head on a police car from three stories up--is keeping pace and holding one of his arms.

"Please never do that again."

"Yeah sure." Not the jumping and landing bit, he's pretty sure that's fine, but the thing with Boo has got to be like an absolute last resort. You'd have to be crazy to run that risk if you didn't have to. "Hey, did you see me land?"

**Author's Note:**

> Do not google Evelyn McHale unless you are okay with learning about someone who landed on top of a car from much higher up and was not okay.
> 
> Buster Keaton, on the other hand, is a source of absolutely charming videos.
> 
> (The image of Axel doing this has been in my head for a while. Time to clear it out.)
> 
> Title, not that you can tell from such a short snippet, is from Tom Petty - "I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings / Coming down is the hardest thing".


End file.
